Do you wish to build a thriving career? With the rising rate of unemployment in Nigeria, it will be surely challenging for you to achieve your professional goals even if you earn a degree. In this scenario, more and more Nigerian youths are opting to become entrepreneurs and starting their own business. Take a look….

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Unemployment Is Affecting Nigerian Youths

With growing volume of youthful population in Africa, several challenges have emerged, both social and economic. However, the number of jobs must increase to compensate the growing population. When adequate jobs will not be created, most of the youths will end up unemployed. According to data from the International Labor Organization, 3 out of 5 unemployed individual in Africa are youths.

A 2008 World Bank Report, entitled ‘Youth Employment in Africa: the potential, the problem and the promise’, reveals that youth employment is particularly prominent in urban regions. Due to poor conditions in rural regions, most people migrate towards the cities which lead to increasing challenges related to unemployment in the urban areas. As a result of this, numerous candidates are applying to limited vacancies and jobs which is creating further problems. Hence, now more youths are deciding to be entrepreneurs and taking necessary steps to not only to build their own careers, but also to create jobs and add substantially to the economy.

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Nigeria Needs More Entrepreneurs

Several entrepreneurs believe that encouraging entrepreneurial thinking among Nigerian youths will be crucial for the economic development of the nation. Moreover, the government is also taking steps to support youth development initiatives and aspiring entrepreneurs. Fashogbon Abiodun David, the CEO of the marketing company Fizzie Republic and the fashion boutique Fashi Fizzie, in Ibadan, southwestern Nigeria, says “The strength of a nation is the power of individual characters. America is what it is because of world-class entrepreneurs that are there: Bill Gate[s] of Microsoft, Steve Jobs of Apple and Larry Ellison of Oracle, Diddy of Sean John.”

David started his entrepreneurial venture in 2001 with just $20 USD and has faced several challenges in order to move his business forward. He says “I started with 2,650 naira [NGN ($16.65 USD)]. I ventured into business to conquer poverty.” He adds that achieving success was a daunting task due to the pressure and intimidation from larger businesses who almost compelled him to close down. He adds “The sharks are the big existing businesses that frowns at competition. I was beaten up by a fellow businessman because he was afraid I will take up the business. The trauma was so much I wanted to close my doors.”

But he says he pressed forward and didn’t even report his assailants because he was more concerned about the future and moving forward. David has successfully established himself as successful Nigerian entrepreneur since 2001 and has effectively expanded his business. Just like several other young entrepreneurs in the country, he is convinced that entrepreneurship is the right solution for dealing with poverty and unemployment in Nigeria.

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How To Be A Successful Entrepreneur

So if you tackle unemployment and build a lucrative career for yourself, then embracing entrepreneurship will empower you to accomplish your goals. However, it is imperative that you acquire the necessary skills and knowledge before you make an investment and start your business.
As a successful entrepreneur, you will need to be an expert in your field and have a clear understanding about the industry and the latest market trends. Moreover, you should also know how to effectively manage your business and lead your team.

Pursuing a business programme can help you to gain all the necessary knowledge and develop various skills like leadership skills, management skills, communication skills etc. However, if you want to be an entrepreneur, then a full time MBA programme will not be the most suitable option for you due to the need for heavy investment of time and money. Then what should you do?

Study Fast Track MBA Online

Pursuing an online fast track MBA will allow you to learn what you need and acquire the required skills without the need for investing huge amounts of time and money. You will learn about the core management concepts and understand how to apply them effectively in your business. You will also develop business and entrepreneurial skills that will allow you to steer your startup towards success.

One of the biggest advantages of studying an online MBA is that you will be able to work and study at the same time. As these courses offer excellent flexibility, you can easily choose to gather relevant work experience or work on your start up while studying and earning an recognised qualification. Moreover, with an online fast track MBA programme, you will have the opportunity to advance your qualification to the final year of an accredited MBA programme and earn a master’s degree in business management.

Pursuing a quality fast track MBA programme will enable you to become a successful entrepreneur in Nigeria and boost your business to create more jobs in the country and add to the national economy.

How do you plan on becoming an entrepreneur? Feel free to share your ideas and views with us by commenting below.

Among the many grave challenges that Nigeria is facing currently, preparing the young generation to add value to the national economy in the future seems to be the hardest. Since that last few years, the nation has been steeped in corruption, terrorist attacks, political uncertainty, high unemployment rates and poor educational opportunities. This creates a huge pressure not only on the society but also on the youths.

Challenges For Nigerian Youths

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With constantly growing rate of unemployment, it is believed that around 75 per cent of Nigerian youths are ill-equipped to cope the international job market, recession and the global economy. This raises various other issues such as easy access to financial support for start-ups along with other challenges in development. Many experts and youth forums highlight the necessity of quality education as well as practical strategies that will enable young people to deal with specific needs and prepare them to deal with challenges in future. Mass poverty is one of the most menacing challenges in Nigeria and represents a big fraction of the overall national population. Most Nigerian youths face much difficulty in getting a job and starting their careers or even their own business.

Unemployment: The Biggest Challenge

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Unemployment is a basic reality for almost all youths, which is even higher than adult unemployment rate. This clearly denotes an improper utilisation of our human capital resources, especially of the Nigerian youth. This also goes to show that most employers do not trust the skills, knowledge and experience of fresh graduates. Young people who get the chance to attend school education are compelled to stay in education for a longer duration by pursuing a masters degree programme. Employment opportunities are becoming more scarce with decreasing salaries and unstable careers.

Those youths who are unable to access higher education opportunities, tend to move away from the school system due to various factors like financial struggles, political disturbances etc. These people are often overlooked by the corporate sector and receive only menial jobs with minimal pay, mostly due to lack of skill and experience. According to statistics, more than 3 million youths in the state of Lagos are still unemployed. With over 2 million people under skilled for employment. Moreover, numerous others are forced to work in temporary jobs are usually taken advantage of by employment agencies with minimal pay and no benefits. Due to all these problems, youths in Nigeria are taking interest in unproductive activities like drug abuse, internet fraud, violent behavior, prostitution, criminal activities, repeated riots etc.

Offering Quality Education

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A reputed English Professor said “The biggest problem Nigeria has with empowering her youth is the fact that they throw temporal solutions to permanent problem and never address issues from the grassroots”.

In the past few years, many NGOs have come forward with excellent processes, strategies and concepts that help the youth to access quality higher education and help them to develop skills that are essential for the workplace. The organisations have a clear understanding of the challenges faced by the Nigerian youth and know how these can be dealt with. Hence, they develop targeted solutions that will enable our youths to face various challenges and uncertainties and move closer towards economic independence.

There is nothing new about the challenges and threats to development of education in Nigeria and how the federal government have been unable to make education accessible for everyone even after so many measures and years. However, with the introduction of a new mobile social quiz platform (efiko.com.ng) aimed for secondary school students, the scenario is set to improve. The EFIKO mobile application, developed by the nation’s leading social innovation centre Co-Creation Hub (CCHub), was launched to improve the learning and understanding of students with the help of self-assessment and topical quizzes.

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Merging Education And Social Media

The launch event also acted as an award ceremony which recognised learners who achieved excellence by using the platform since the pilot test in Lagos. Tunji Eleso, Project Incubator of CcHub, claimed the app has combined the power of education with social media to create a crucial mass of learners who can face various academic challenges. Eleso said “Social media is a very powerful tool which most youths use negatively. The reality is that there is competition for the attention of these youths and our goal is to challenge them to, at their leisure, learn by taking the mobile quiz.”

Regarding the functions of the new app, Eleso commented that students can download efiko.com.ng on different platforms like Nokia S40, Android etc. He added “The 10-question short quiz is to test their knowledge, and at the end of the quiz, they can share their results on facebook with a very simple message ‘I scored this much in this particular subject in the quiz and I challenge you to beat my scores.’ Since the competition for their attention is stiff, visiting efiko.com.ng has some incentives such as the best students in different subjects and different classes would win Samsung mobile phones at the end of the month. Also, the best students would be promoted on the website.”

Development Of Public Examinations

Eleso believes that currently Nigeria is going through a crisis situation regarding secondary education and this is resulting in unacceptably bad results in public examinations. According to him, the application aims to help the learners in improving their academic performance and accomplishments. He said “Since the application is in accordance with the national curriculum, it would help students in schools that have shortage of teaching materials and teachers to cover the curriculum and equally challenge their mates. This, we believe, is crucial in addressing the challenges of education at the secondary level. ”

CcHub Project Incubator Tunji Eleso further said “When students use this application to study what they learn in school, it would help them know their strengths and weaknesses in different subjects from an early stage and on a term by term basis, thereby leading to an improvement in public examinations. We are also working with publishers and government to ensure that we don’t deviate from the curriculum.”

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Helping Students To Improve?

EFIKO challenges students to learn more and perform better by achieving better scores and assessing their own improvements. It also enables the students to interact with fellow learners and work with each other through social media.

What do you think about the new application? Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions with us by commenting below.